Avengement
by ZVArmy
Summary: Hunter Helmsley does not take kindly to being disrespected, least of all by someone who is also trying to muscle in on his business. When he decides to permanently settle the score with Roman Reigns personally, he could never imagine the way in which Roman's wife Nicole will plan to avenge him. *Warning! Dark story containing strong language and explicit violence!*
1. Chapter 1

Running an organisation which specialised in the manufacture and distribution of crystal meth was lucrative to say the least. Right now however, Hunter Helmsley wasn't thinking about the money that the venture made for him and his wife, Stephanie. Right now, he was trying to keep his fragile temper under control as a short, bald man in a badly tailored suit patted him down. As if he would actually show up at the office of his biggest and most hated rival with a gun inside his jacket. In this line of work, whether you hated someone or not, you had to play by the unwritten rules, which meant being prepared to have conversations with even the bitterest of your enemies while maintaining the illusion of civility. It was just how things were done.

Hunter straightened his dark blue jacket and watched as the fruitless search for weapons moved on to the blonde woman beside him. She didn't say anything. She rarely did. Her facial expressions usually did the talking for her, not that she had many of them.

"You can go through," the man announced, as if bestowing a great gift on Hunter and his right hand woman.

Without any acknowledgement, Hunter walked forwards several paces and pushed open the large wooden double doors which lead to one of the offices of the man he had come to meet. This particular office was part of the most plush and luxurious suite, on the top floor of the most expensive hotel in the city. A huge man with long black hair tied in a back in a ponytail stood up behind a mahogany desk as his two visitors entered. He wore a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Hunter would have preferred to throw the son of a bitch through one of the full length windows that made up the entire wall of the office than return the smile, but there was a game to be played. The glass was much too thick anyway. Even so, it was very tempting to try. For those who cared about such things, the view would have been considered spectacular.

"Hunter," the man greeted. "Drink?"

"Roman," Hunter acknowledged, managing to sound pleasant. "Whisky. No ice."

Roman stepped over to a table in the corner of the room, on which there were various alcoholic drinks, along with several glasses. He poured out a healthy shot of whisky into a shot glass and held it out towards Hunter. "And for you?" He asked Hunter's companion, who had closed the double doors behind them and taken up a position against the wall, watching. Her opposite number in Roman's organisation, Scott Steiner, sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, also watching. His face remained expressionless.

"Ronda doesn't drink, you know that," Hunter said, not completely hiding his impatience.

The statement was considered for a second by Roman. "Doesn't drink. Doesn't even talk from what I've seen. What exactly _does_ she do?"

"Saw her beat a man to death with a golf club one time," Hunter said casually as he sipped his whisky. "I bet it was a bitch of a job to get that third tee cleaned up. Can we get on with this?"

Roman looked at Ronda for a second as if imagining the scene that Hunter had described before gesturing to the comfortable leather chair in front of his desk. He re-took his own seat behind it. "We can get on with it, for what point there is."

Taking the offered seat, Hunter looked his rival in the eye. Before that last comment, Hunter had already known that this meeting was going to be a waste of time. This younger generation had no idea how to do business, how to work out problems sensibly, rationally, without bloodshed. People like Roman thought that they could arrive in a city, start throwing money around building huge glass fronted office buildings and hotels wherever they liked. They also thought that they could start manufacturing and selling meth on someone else's turf. On that final point, Hunter had long since decided, Roman was wrong. No one fucked around on Helmsley turf. The very implication should have served as a first warning. Hunter was about to deliver the second. There would not be a third.

"You know why I'm here," Hunter said, as if talking about the weather.

"You're selling that suite at the golf course that you operate of and you want to move up market by renting one of mine? About time. No one does business on the golf course anymore."

Hunter made a point of looking around the office distastefully, even though he did actually like the look of the place, completely ignoring Roman's lame attempt to get a reaction. "I don't like the decor," he quipped.

"So why are you here?" Roman said, brushing off the insult.

"You're still selling that garbage you call product in my city," Hunter said, . "I thought I made my position clear on that?"

"You did," Roman said, sipping from his own drink as he leaned back in his chair, relaxed. "And I made mine clear also. We both sell a much sought after product. We should negoiate a dividing line. I sell in the northern half of the city, you sell in the south. Simple."

"There's no money in the south side," Hunter said, his voice growing ice cold. "You actually have the nerve to come to _my_ city, start selling on _my_ turf, and then try to dictate terms to _me_ on where _I_ can sell?"

Roman smirked at Hunter across the desk. "You'd rather I offered you nothing?"

Rather than explode, Hunter calmly downed his drink and set the shot glass on the desk. "I'm sorry we couldn't come to an agreement."

"Me too," Roman said, standing as Hunter did so simultaneously. "But thank you for stopping by. It's always a pleasure."

He offered his hand and Hunter shook it. _It won't be a pleasure next time I stop by, asshole,_ Hunter thought as he gripped the hand tightly and stared into Roman's eyes. "We'll re-visit this soon," Hunter said.

"I wouldn't make a bet on that," Roman snorted.

"I would," Hunter assured him.

Something deep within Hunter's ice cold eyes unnerved Roman for a split second, but he brushed it off and gestured dismissively towards the door with one hand, disrespectfully signalling that the meeting was over.

A few minutes later, Hunter and Ronda walked out of the building and into the fading evening light. Hunter's black Bentley Flying Spur V8 sat ready and waiting right out front. Ronda opened the door for Hunter and climbed in behind him. The driver pulled away immediately, merging into traffic.

In the back of the car, Hunter rubbed a hand over his very short hair and let out a quiet but angry growl. "Someone's going to have to kill that son of a bitch," he mumbled to Ronda. "In fact, I think a message needs to be sent. I'm going to do it myself, and I'm going to do it tonight."

"It's about time," came the mumbled reply. It was about as close as Ronda ever got to sounding pleased about something.

Aside from the quiet purr of the engine, silence descended on the car for the rest of the journey back to Hunter and Stephanie's mansion. Hunter was using the peace and quiet to relax his mind, and to put together a plan. By the time the car pulled into the enormous, tree lined driveway half an hour later he knew exactly how he was going to go about killing Roman Reigns.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'll be leaving in a minute," Hunter announced as he walked into the largest of his mansion's living rooms. The centrepieces were an enormous chandelier, which was worth more than most people's entire homes, and an ornate marble fireplace, above which there was a large framed photograph of Hunter and Stephanie, taken on their wedding day. They were still every bit as happy now as they had been then, if not even more so.

Stephanie stood up from the couch and walked over to him. The tone of his voice had told her that he was ready to take care of business and the way he was dressed confirmed it. Rather than being dressed impeccably as he usually was, he was wearing a plain black fleece and black jeans. Stephanie knew exactly what the reason was. Hunter planned to sneak into the grounds of Roman Reign's mansion, maybe even into the house itself if necessary, and shoot his rival in the head. It was murder, but Stephanie had no problem with that. In fact, she had killed three men herself over the years. Murder was just something that came with the line of work that they had made so much money from. The only thing that concerned Stephanie was the danger that her husband was putting himself in. Sure, the plan was for Hunter to get in, fire his gun once and then leave, but she knew well that battle plans rarely survived first contact with the enemy.

"You know what's sexier than a man who's ready to take care of business?" Stephanie asked as she approached him.

"One that's married to you?"

Looking into his eyes, Stephanie felt herself burning up inside. "That, and one who's prepared to kill to do it."

He grabbed her by the waist, pulling her closing to him. "You see, that's one of the reasons I love you so much. You just get me. You don't look at me as a cunning and twisted bastard."

"Well that's because it's true, I do get you," Stephanie said, reaching up slightly to kiss him. "And you're not a cunning and twisted bastard. You're a smart man who's loyal to who and what he holds dear. You're decisive, you love having all the power and control, and you have no damn problem doing whatever it takes to keep it." Hunter started kissing her neck, but Stephanie stopped him after a few seconds by cupping his face. She could tell that he was turned on, and she most definitely was, but she knew that right now he needed to focus on what was to come. "The way you walk, the way you talk when you're like this. It's incredibly sexy. You're incredibly sexy. But there's no guarantee you'll be invincible tonight."

Hunter took her hands away from his face and placed them on his sides. "Steph, I appreciate your concern, I know the risks, but this has to be done. Don't worry."

"No baby, I'm not worrying," Stephanie said, grabbing Hunter's hands and clinching them to her chest. "I don't simply believe you can get it done, I _know_ you _will_ get it done. I just wanted to assure you that I love all of you, everything about you. Hang on a sec." She reached into a pocket of her pants and pulled out diamond-encrusted silver lapel pin. It was in the shape of a cross and there was a heart in the centre.

"What's this?" Hunter asked softly as she clipped it onto his fleece.

"I wanted a little piece of me with you when you take that bastard out. I love you Hunter. Forever and always. Now go be The Man."

"I love you too. Forever and always," Hunter repeated and then kissed her again, longer and more passionately this time. He smiled at her one last time before they pulled apart. Now it was time to go take care of business. All he needed before he could leave was a gun. As he walked out of the living room, he saw Ronda emerge from a doorway further along the hallway. She closed it and locked it. It was the door which lead to the basement, which served as their armoury.

As Hunter approached her, Ronda held out a Beretta M9 pistol with a silencer attached to it. "You sure you don't want me come with you? You know I'd love to take care of this for you."

She was right, he did know that. No one knew Ronda better than Hunter and Stephanie did, given that she had been something of an adopted niece to them since she was ten. When she had gotten old enough to properly understand, she had learned that her father had been Hunter's first right hand man in the early days of the organisation, before he was ambushed, brutally stabbed to death, and then beheaded by a group of six thugs from a rival upstart organisation. All six men were now dead, every single one of them having been shot in the head at point blank range by Ronda on different occasions, thanks to Hunter using his connections and powers of persuasion to track them down for her. It wasn't possible for her to bring her father back, but she had damn sure avenged him, as well as working her way up the ladder in Hunter's organisation in the process.

By that point, at the age of nineteen, Ronda had accepted the reality of the fact that not only did she enjoy killing people, she was also good at it. Good, but not great. It was for that reason that she had taken a decision that had come as a massive surprise to Hunter and Stephanie. She had decided to join the US army. The fact that the purpose of this was solely to get better at killing people was something that Ronda had kept to herself. She had returned from the army a proficient sniper. Being a sniper wasn't simply killing people, it was hunting them. Blowing a man's head apart from over a mile away as he sat on his own property was something that not many people could do. Ronda was one of those people, a cold blooded killer, and she loved it.

Hunter saw that in her eyes as he took the pistol from her. She was literally craving to kill Roman Reigns, but she wasn't going to get the chance. The message that Hunter planned to deliver had to be heard loud and clear not only by the Reigns organisation, but by every organisation who got wind of the execution. That was what it was going to be. Not just a murder, but a message. No one fucked with Hunter Helmsley. "Not this time. This time I go in alone."

He saw Ronda consider that for a moment before her expression changed ever so slightly. The change was mostly in her eyes, which now showed concern. "Then you better come back safe," she said. Her tone left Hunter with no doubt that Ronda's world would fall apart if he didn't. He knew that he and Stephanie were the only people in the world that Ronda cared about, but she cared about both of them very deeply, even if she didn't show it. It was almost as though she didn't know how to.

"Always," Hunter replied, pulling Ronda into a hug. It was brief, but she returned his embrace tightly before they pulled apart. With that, Hunter headed out of the front door and got in the SUV that was ready and waiting for him. If all went well, he would be home within a couple of hours with his mission accomplished, leaving Roman Reigns and his organisation no longer a problem. If you cut the head off a snake, the rest of it didn't live for long. However, Hunter also knew that if his plan didn't work out, he might never come back home at all. Anything was possible.

Standing in the doorway, watching him drive away down the driveway, Ronda bit her bottom lip. She wouldn't allow tears to fall from her eyes, no matter how worried she was. Knowing that Hunter was soon going to be putting himself in grave danger and that she wouldn't be there by his side was cutting into her like a knife. She stiffened as she felt a hand squeeze her shoulder.

"I know you're worried," Stephanie said as she moved to stand beside Ronda. Even though Ronda was not one to display her emotions, for all intents and purposes she was Stephanie's niece and she could sense her worry. "He'll come back to us," she said quietly, taking confidence and reassurance from her own words.

Ronda shook her head slightly, putting the emotional moment behind her. "Yeah. You're right. He will. Roman Reigns is fucking dead already. He just doesn't know it yet."


	3. Chapter 3

With a satisfied sigh and a smile on his face, Roman Reigns stretched his arms above him as much as he could, causing his left elbow to crack in the process. "That was amazing, as usual," he said to his wife Nicole as she walked back into their huge and expensively furnished dining room, carrying a bottle of wine. He was referring to the foie gras and black truffles that they had just eaten for dinner. They had already had a glass of wine each too, but Nicole had forgotten to bring the bottle in from the kitchen when she had served the meal. Roman obviously had enough money to hire a whole army of chefs if he so chose, but the fact was that Nicole liked to cook for them, and she was good at it.

"Would you like anything for dessert?" Nicole asked, leaning over to pour wine into Roman's glass, giving him a perfect view of her breasts. They too had cost him a small fortune, but his wife now had the best breast augmentations that money could buy. He certainly had no complaints.

"Not to eat," he said slyly, making no attempt to be subtle about where he was looking.

"I see," Nicole said studiously, pretending to take the statement very seriously. "I'll take that under advisement. I was actually going to head up to bed soon anyway."

"Take it under advisement. You sound like that fucking asshole," Roman mumbled, suddenly sounding angry.

"Sorry?" Nicole said warily, sitting back down opposite Roman and pouring wine into her own glass. It was a very rare thing for Roman to lose his temper with her, but not a rare thing at all for him to lose it with others. It was never a pleasant sight, least of all for the unfortunate person on the receiving end.

"Helmsley," Roman spat out, as if the name left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, unlike the wine that he sipped as he said it. "The fucking guy walked into my office earlier this evening and basically threatened me to stop selling in 'his' city. No one fucking threatens me."

After he set his wine glass back down on the table, Nicole took his huge right hand in both of hers and squeezed it. "I know he gets to you, baby, but that's all he wants to do. He's all mouth and no balls. He's a relic, a thing of the past. This is your city now. Our city. Everyone knows it apart from Helmsley and his..."

Roman cut in, finishing her sentence for her, but in a different way, "And that fucking ugly, retarded, psychopathic, mole-faced guard dog he trails around behind him everywhere he goes." As he continued his rage came out full force. "She stood in my office, _my fucking office_ , looking at me like she wanted to come across the desk at me. I wish she had done. I'd have blown her brains out all over the floor, and I'd have loved doing it too."

"Please calm down," Nicole said, wanting to get away from Roman and leave him to calm down. She knew that was what worked best with him when he got as worked up as he was right now.

Roman continued, talking over the top of her and seemingly not even noticing that she spoke. "I should let Steiner loose on her. Given half a chance, I'll fucking do it."

Nicole knew exactly what that meant. It was no secret to anyone within the organisation that Scott Steiner had a sadistic obsession with raping women, and would usually kill them when he was finished with them too. It made Nicole's skin crawl just to be around him, which was something that she thankfully didn't have to do very often. Having heard more than enough and not wanting to make things worse, Nicole decided against launching into her own rant about the person that she despised the most, Stephanie, and downed her glass of wine in one hit, standing up from the table. "I'm going upstairs. Why don't you have another drink or something and then come up? I'll make you feel so much better. I promise I'll work all that tension out of you."

Frustratedly rubbing at his face with his hands, Roman's voice softened. "I'm sorry. It's just Helmsley. He really pisses me off something crazy. He won't give any ground at all, so I think it might be time for him to disappear. This city will belong to us, one way or another."

"I like the sound of that," Nicole said, leaning down for a brief kiss.

"I'm going to get some fresh air for a few minutes and then I'll be up," Roman said as he stood up. "You'll be ready for me?"

"Oh yeah, I'll be ready," Nicole smirked, looking longingly into his eyes.

The satisfied smile returned to Roman's face as he followed his wife out of the dining room. She turned to the right to head for the stairs, while he turned left to walk through the living room and out of the double doors leading to the decking which surrounded one end of the heated swimming pool. The pool looked absolutely pristine, as did everything else on the property. The water looked very inviting to Roman. A swim was always good for working out stress. Not as good as Nicole of course, but a swim could maybe start the process and she could finish it.

Savoring the cool, fresh air and considering going back into the house to fetch some trunks, Roman took in a deep breath as he walked a few steps closer to the pool. He was feeling calmer already. It was at that moment that he sensed rather than heard someone approach him from behind. He knew that it wasn't Nicole, or one of his security team. She would be giving him time and space to cool off, and the security staff were not allowed in the house or the garden at night, only in the outer perimeter of the grounds. That had been a big mistake. He knew that now, but it was too late. He took in another deep breath, this one for a very different reason. Some kind of sixth sense had already told him exactly who had been waiting out here in the shadows. Waiting for him. Waiting for this moment.

"Hunter?" Roman asked, closing his eyes.

"Yep," Hunter replied simply, the smirk on his face noticeable in his tone, and pulled the trigger of the silenced Beretta, which was aimed at the back of Roman's head. He'd had no intention of wasting time with a conversation. A muted pop was all that could be heard as the gun fired, followed a moment later by the sound of Roman's body collapsing face-first onto the decking. He was dead before he got that far. Blood poured from the hole in the back of his head, and also from the much larger exit wound in his forehead, soaking the decking and beginning to flow into the pool, staining the water.

Killing someone wasn't something that Hunter particularly enjoyed, but there were certainly some exceptions that made doing so both meaningful and pleasurable. Tonight was one of those exceptions. He certainly would never hesitate when it was necessary to protect his business or his family: Stephanie and Ronda. Killing Roman Reigns had been necessary, and now it was done. It was time to sneak back across the lawn, through the hedge at the bottom of the garden, and then make his way across the rest of the grounds undetected to get back to the SUV which was parked almost a mile away. Given how easy it had been to get in, Hunter wasn't particularly concerned about getting caught on his way back out. Before walking away, he glanced back at the house and saw something that made him pause. Above the open doors, there was a security camera which covered the decking and the pool. The execution would have been recorded by the camera, assuming that that it was working. A thought occurred to Hunter. The point of killing Roman was not just to take a rival out of the picture, it was also to teach an important lesson to the rest of his organisation and to any other organisation which got wind of the night's events - which was guaranteed to happen. He mumbled to himself, "Why not really send the message?"

With the decision made, he leaned down, grabbed Roman's left arm and used it to drag his body closer the security camera, trailing blood across the decking behind them in the process. There was no way to know if the camera recorded sound as well as images, so to make one hundred per cent sure that the message got through, Hunter pulled off the black ski-mask that he was wearing with his right hand and tossed it aside, before looking into the camera. He didn't raise his voice too loudly in case Roman's wife or any security personnel heard him, but he spoke loudly enough to be easily understood by anyone watching the footage back later. "Looks like your man's seen better days, huh? This is what happens, what _will_ happen, to anyone who fucks with Hunter Helmsley. Get out of _my_ city, all of you." He gestured with the gun to emphasise his point. "Get out and nobody else needs to be killed. But, if we have to, me and my people will put down every single fucking last one of you. This isn't a warning, it's a promise. Ignore me, and you can see what happens. Ask this piece of shit."

Hunter had gestured towards Roman's body with his head. The message was delivered. The job was done. Hunter decided to make a swift exit while the going was good. He walked calmly out of the camera shot. As he walked around the side of the pool, heading for the bottom of the garden, he touched the lapel pin on the front of his fleece and whispered, "It's done, Steph. It's done."


	4. Chapter 4

Nicole Reigns had been standing beside her bed in silence for several minutes, looking at the framed photograph of her late husband which stood on the dresser. Four weeks had gone by since Roman had been taken from her. For Nicole, they had been four weeks of heartbreak, four weeks of loneliness, four weeks of torture. There was a hole in her life now that would never be filled, _could_ never be filled. Roman hadn't been a perfect husband, especially in the last few months of his life as the tension of the conflict with the Helmsley organisation began to take a heavy toll on him; but even with his flaws, he had been the love of Nicole's life, ever since she had met him ten years earlier. She was the only one to see the other side of him; the side of him that wasn't the ruthless leader of a Crystal Meth manufacturing and distribution organisation; the side that was more than capable of being tender and loving.

Tough times, like those caused by the intense rivalry with the Helmsley organisation, would never have changed the love that Nicole and Roman had for each other, despite the times towards the end of his life that Nicole had felt a little afraid of his increasingly volatile temper **.** Nothing would have changed it, aside from some callous, evil bastard sneaking onto their property and murdering, _executing really_ , Roman in cold blood. Roman was shot in the back of the head at almost point blank range. That callous, evil bastard was Hunter Helmsley. Not only had Hunter been brazen enough to shoot Roman on their own property, he had made a point of showing himself to the security camera, making sure that she knew that he was proud of what he had done. Nicole had watched the video footage so many times over the previous weeks, playing it over and over, wishing that she could torture Hunter with her willpower alone. She had wanted so desperately to make Hunter pay for what he had done to Roman and what he had taken away from her, and today was the day that he _was_ going to pay for it.

"He's going to pay, baby," Nicole whispered to the picture. "They're all going to pay." With that, it was time to set her grief and anguish aside for the moment and focus. There was a well-constructed plan to execute. She slid the top drawer of the dresser open and pulled out a Walther P99 pistol with a silencer attached to the barrel. For a moment she just looked at the weapon, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She knew that those who liked to judge a book by its cover would have been very surprised by how proficient she was with a gun, even if it had been some time since she had fired one in anger. That was going to change today for sure. On her way out of the bedroom, she paused to look at herself in the mirror. With her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and dressed in much the same manner as Hunter Helmsley had been on that fateful night, wearing a black coat and black jeans, she was ready for action. Slowly, she drew in a deep breath and let it back out. She was composed. It was time to begin.

Nicole made her way downstairs and into the largest of the mansion's living rooms, where three men were waiting for her. Control of the Reigns organisation had of course passed to her upon Roman's death, which meant that her orders held the utmost authority, and would be carried out as such. "Did they go for it?" She asked one of the men as she walked through the doorway.

The conversation that had been in progress between Bubba Dudley, his half-brother Devon, and Scott Steiner stopped immediately at the sound of her voice, which they all gave their full attention to. The question had been addressed to Bubba, who replied, "Yeah, they went for it. I didn't doubt that they would. Helmsley's ego's too big for him not to jump on something like this, and in any case, it's no surprise that he would want inside information on our setup. We told him to meet us at Finlay's bar on the other side of the city, just like you said. I couldn't tell him to bring the woman with him of course. That would look suspicious to say the least, but she goes everywhere with him. We all know that."

The woman he had referred to was Ronda. The key to the success of Nicole's plan was to get both Hunter and Ronda out of the way, over to the other side of the city on some wild goose chase which they thought was going to end with the Dudley brothers defecting from the Reigns organisation, to their own. The Dudley's job was to simply stall them for time, while Nicole put her own part of the plan into action. "Then you better get going," she ordered the brothers.

Without further discussion, Bubba and Devon left the room. They had a fairly long drive ahead of them through evening traffic to get to Finlay's in time for the meeting. Nicole's attention turned to Steiner. "Get over to the safe house. You know what to do."

"Yeah, I know exactly what to do," Steiner said, with a hideous grin on his face. "Trust me, I'll be ready and waiting."

Nicole hated even being in the same room as the man. She decided that when this was all over it was going to be time to have someone take Steiner out into the countryside, where he would be left in a shallow grave. He deserved nothing better, and killing him would be for the best for everyone, aside from Steiner himself, of course. Right now though, he was a very necessary part of the plan. "Then let's move," she said abruptly, turning and heading for the door.

As they walked out of the room, Nicole could sense that Steiner was checking her out. Whether she was the new boss or not, Steiner was a serial rapist and murderer of women; and she knew that there was part of him that would love to get his hands on her too. Yes, Steiner had a bullet with his name on it, and he was going to get it as soon as possible, after the Helmsley's had been dealt with.

* * *

By the time Nicole reached the Helmsley mansion, evening had turned to night. She had parked her car just up the street, in an ideal place to be able to observe the mansion, grounds, and security. The house was well lit, with lights on in almost every room, but there were no signs of life other than the lone guard who was standing beside the large gateway, smoking a cigarette. "Unbelievable," she muttered to herself. The gates were even left open. The security seemed to be so lax that she would have doubted that Stephanie was home, if she hadn't had a man watching the place all day, prior to her arrival.

The reality was that Stephanie was in the house, along with two other security personnel, and a maid. Nicole had known that it would not be easy to pull of the plan that she had come up with, so it was no surprise that it was proving to be that way. She would either succeed for Roman, or she would die trying. There was no other way, no third option. Taking a final deep breath for courage, she checked to make sure that her gun was safely tucked into her coat pocket, and got out of the car.

The man on guard duty at the gates paid almost no attention to her as she approached along the sidewalk, although she had seen him glance in her direction. He was leaning against the wall at the side of the open gates, and had just tossed his cigarette butt away into the gutter. "Excuse me mister," Nicole said as she hurried to the guard, doing a good job of putting a combination of panic and desperation into her voice. "Do you have a phone I could use?"

"Why, what's happened?" the guard said, not sounding particularly interested, but reaching into his coat pocket for his phone anyway.

With his attention distracted and his hands busy, Nicole had created the distraction that she had hoped for perfectly. Very quickly, she whipped the gun out of her coat pocket and shot the guard in the forehead before he was even able to react. The muted pop of the gunshot wouldn't have been audible to anyone who wasn't in close proximity. "There's been a shooting," Nicole said coldly as the guard's body collapsed to the ground in the gateway.

Wasting no time, she dragged the body through the gateway and left it lying next to the large hedgerow that surrounded the property. She was in. _One down, two to go,_ she thought. Getting rid of the security detail was priority number one for obvious reasons. What she didn't know was where the other two were specifically. The Helmsley mansion was an enormous building with God only knew how many rooms, and there was still the problem of actually getting inside. That was where the guard's radio was going to prove useful. Having retrieved it, she made her way across the extensive lawn, up to the front of the house, making sure not to walk into any of the light coming through the mansion's windows. Her black toe shoes would have made little sound even on the driveway itself, so on the lawn she was able to move silently.

When she reached the wall of the mansion, she crouched and moved along it, keeping herself beneath the windows, until she was near the front door. Not being one to take an interest in nature, Nicole had no idea what the small trees were that lined the short pathway which lead from the driveway and parking area to the door. For her, all the trees were was cover. In fact, they were the perfect hiding place. She remained crouched and took position with her back against one of the trees. She was safely out of sight of the house, but could easily step out onto the pathway when it was time to act. Her next objective was to draw out one of the remaining guards. To that end, she held the talk button on the radio for several seconds, and rubbed it up and down against her coat.

It only took a moment for the strange noise to generate a response. A male voice came from the radio. "Tony? Repeat your last."

Nicole repeated her actions, sending out a similar transmission, but this time ending by banging the radio against barrel of her gun. She hoped that the loud noise would have carried well through the speaker and would cause the guy on the other to want to investigate exactly what was going on.

"These fucking radios," the voice complained irritably. "Why do they insist on giving us these pieces of shit? I'm coming out to you now. Carl, get down here."

Nicole smirked as she tossed the radio aside. It was perfect. It seemed that both of the guards were going to come outside.

Thirty seconds later, the front door opened. Bright light streamed out onto the pathway, but Nicole remained safely hidden, crouched against the tree. The door was behind her, but she could see two long shadows on the pathway. The voice that she had heard on the radio said, "Where the fuck's he gone now?"

"Can't see him by the gate," another voice said, obviously Carl, the other guard.

"No shit," the first voice said sarcastically.

At that moment, the two large men walked past Nicole, side by side. Silently, she stepped out from her hiding place, took aim and shot one of them in the back of the head.

"Fucking..." Was all the other man managed to say as he reacted to the sound of the shot and the dull thump of the bullet impacting his partner's head. He tried to spin around, drawing a pistol of his own in the process. Nicole fired again, the bullet hitting him just above the left eye.

"Amateurs," Nicole mumbled, finishing his sentence for him. Three shots fired for three kills. A very professional job so far, and the hard part was done. The front door was even still standing open. It couldn't have played out any better in her wildest dreams. There was no point bothering to hide the two bodies. Instead, Nicole walked quickly into the house and quietly closed the front door. The warmth of the house felt good as it washed over her. She was standing in a large entrance hall which had two sets of doors on either side, all closed, and a stunning grand staircase as the centrepiece, right in front of her. There was no one in sight.

"Where the hell are you, Stephanie?" she whispered to herself.

Before she could make a decision on which door to try first, a door on the right side of the hallway opened and the maid, a young Hispanic looking woman wearing an apron, walked into the hallway. As she did so, she saw Nicole, who was pointing the gun at her, and gasped.

"Ssshhh," Nicole said quietly. "Don't make a sound, and you won't get hurt. Where's Stephanie?"

The maid was clearly terrified. She pointed a shaking finger at the opposite door on the left side of the hallway.

"Let's go," Nicole said, gesturing with her head towards the door which the maid had pointed to.

Nicole hadn't actually given an order for the maid to raise her hands, but she had done so. She kept them raised as she walked towards the door, leading to one of the mansion's living rooms. Stephanie was relaxing with a glass of wine after a long day at the office of the food processing company, which was one of the Helmsley's legitimate businesses used as a front for their Meth operation. Nicole walked behind the maid, making sure not to get close enough for the maid to try anything stupid, even though it was plainly obvious that she was too scared to even consider it.

The maid reached the door. Nicole kept her voice low, too quiet for Stephanie to hear on the other side. "Nice and slow. Open it with one hand only, walk in, and keep your hands in the air," Nicole commanded. "Like I said, you don't have to get hurt here." Following Nicole's instructions to the letter, the maid entered the room, followed by Nicole.

At the sound of the door opening, Stephanie looked up from the internet browser on her phone and froze for a second. She was stretched out on one of the long leather couches. "Oh shit," she breathed as she saw the gun and recognized Nicole. Hunter and Ronda were away on the other side of the city, and the fact that Nicole was in the house virtually had to mean one of two things: the guards were either dead or incapacitated. She knew that she was in the deepest of shit, with no apparent way to get out. Was this how it was going to end, being shot in her own living room by Roman Reigns' vengeful wife?

"No shit, oh shit," Nicole said coldly, taking up a position a few feet from the couch, gesturing with the gun as she ordered, "Sit up and make room for her to sit next to you. Now. And keep your hands where I can see them. Don't fuck me around, Stephanie, or I'll kill you both right here and now. There are three dead assholes out there, so trust me, I'm not making idle threats."

The maid began to cry as Stephanie sat up, leaving room beside her for the maid to sit down on the couch. She placed her hands in her lap, just as Nicole had instructed.

"Sit down and stop that fucking crying," Nicole barked. "Didn't I say you wouldn't get hurt unless you fuck me around? Keep that up and I'll put so many bullets in you that your family won't be able to identify your body. Understood?"

The maid sat down next to Stephanie, perched on the edge of the couch.

"Leave Sara out of this," Stephanie said, trying to show anger rather than fear, although she was sure that fear was written all over her face. "She's just our maid. You have no quarrel with her, and she has a family. Let her go and we can…"

"Shut the fuck up!" Nicole yelled, cutting Stephanie off, but keeping the gun trained on her. "I'm doing the talking here. You think that what, I came here to talk to you? You think we're going to have a pleasant little chat over a cup of tea? I've got news for you. I didn't come here to talk to you. I didn't even come here to shoot you. Shooting you wouldn't be anywhere near enough to pay your bastard husband back for what he did to my Roman."

"What does that mean?" Stephanie asked, this time failing to keep the fear out of her voice. "What are you going to do?"

"We're going to go make a little video for your husband to watch. He seems to like videos. We're going to record a little video of our own, for _his_ viewing pleasure, **"** Nicole said, with a nasty grin on her face. "But first, I need a little assistance from our friend Sara over here, if she really does want to go home to her family tonight. Is that what you want, Sara?"

"Yes," Sara said quietly. Tears were still pouring down her face, even though she was manging not to make any noise with her crying, as instructed.

"Good." Nicole reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a roll of black Gorilla Tape, the strongest tape on the market. She tossed it to Sara, who caught it. "Start by taping her wrists together behind her back. And make sure you do it as tight as you can. I'll be checking, and remember, you don't want me to think you're fucking with me."

Sara hesitated, and looked at Stephanie as if she would come up with a magical way for them to get out of the situation that they were in. "Mrs. Helmsley…"

"Just do it Sara," Stephanie said, still doing her best to show as little fear as possible. She didn't take her eyes off Nicole or the gun as she put her hands behind her back, and turned slightly so that Sara could obey Nicole's order. She was determined that Sara wasn't going to die on this night, not on her account.

"Enough talk," Nicole snapped. "Get on with it. Nice and tight, and wrap it around at least three times. Move."

Reluctantly, Sara started to go to work with the tape, wrapping it around Stephanie's wrists as tightly as she could. Stephanie grimaced at the pain from the tightness of the tape. "You do realize you're already dead for this, Nicole, right?" Stephanie said. "I'm not stupid. You think I believe that you're not going to kill me? I don't. Hunter killed your egomaniac asshole of a husband and this is how you plan to avenge him, by killing me. He'll kill you too, bitch, if it's the last thing he does! Between them, Hunter and Ronda will wipe out every last member of your pathetic little mob, I promise you that."

Nicole wasn't going to be drawn into losing her cool by Stephanie's obvious attempt to bait her. "I've heard enough!" she shouted. "Not another word, or I shoot the pair of you." She made a circular motion with the gun. "Do her mouth next, for all of our sakes. Same thing, tight as you can, wrap it around at least three times."

Sara had a tough time tearing the tape after finishing with Stephanie's wrists, which caused Nicole to get impatient. "Hurry up! I don't have all fucking night!"

"I'm sorry," Sara said quietly to Stephanie as she stuck the end of the tape to Stephanie's left cheek, and then wrapped it as tightly as she could around her mouth. Stephanie groaned in pain as the tape was wound around her head three times, exactly as Nicole had ordered. The pain was a lot worse than Stephanie had imagined, but she also knew that much worse was to come before Nicole was finished with her, whatever the plan was. A video had been mentioned, so the most likely scenario was that she was going to be tortured to death, and the recording of it would be sent to Hunter. The fear was really taking hold of her as she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She tried her best to fight them off because the last thing she wanted to do with a gag over her mouth was to start crying, causing her nose to block and preventing her from breathing. Attempting to move her mouth to work the tape off proved futile, as did trying to move her wrists. There was no give in the tape at all.

Nicole laughed at her futile struggling. "Don't bother. I chose this shit specifically. It's much stronger than ordinary duct tape. There's no way you'll escape this on your own." Her attention turned to Sara and she calmly ordered, "Now her ankles. Get on the floor and do it. Come on, hurry up."

Co-operating was the last thing that Stephanie wanted to do, but she felt she had to for Sara's sake; and in any event, what resistance could she really put up in the position she was in? There was no option other than to sit there while Sara got down on her knees in front of her and taped her ankles together. As she was doing it, Sara looked up at Stephanie and their eyes met. The younger woman looked both terrified and guilty in equal measure. Stephanie wanted to tell her that it was going to be okay, but of course it was not possible.

When she was finished, Sara tore off the tape and set the roll aside before standing up and facing Nicole. "It's done," she said, sounding disgusted with herself for doing it.

"Thank you. You've been most helpful," Nicole said. Without hesitation, she shot Sara between the eyes, spraying blood, brain matter and skull fragments over the couch and onto the wall behind it. Blood also splattered on Stephanie's left cheek and the shoulder of her blouse. Stephanie screamed and stared wide-eyed in horror as Sara's body fell backwards, half landed on the edge of the couch and then slumped to the floor. The eyes that looked up at her were now lifeless.

Nicole saw Stephanie look up at her and try to say something in between her frantic, laboured breaths. The muffled noises sounded angry. "What, you think this is a time for mercy?" Nicole asked, clearly infuriated. "What mercy did your fucking husband show my Roman? He wanted to work out a deal with you assholes so that everyone could prosper, but no, you'd rather _kill_ him! You took my husband from me and now I will avenge him. Let's get you out of here, Mr. Steiner's waiting."

As Nicole walked towards Stephanie, she saw the realization dawn on her captive, who began to squirm and moan pitifully. "Oh yeah, we're going to have lots of fun. Hunter likes video clips, apparently. But we're better than that, aren't we Steph? Of course we are. He won't just get a clip from us. We'll be sending him a full show."

Within minutes, Stephanie had been carried out of the house and safely stashed in the trunk of Nicole's car, and they were on the way to the safe house.


	5. Chapter 5

Hunter was feeling pleased with himself, and with life in general, as Ronda drove them home from their meeting with the Dudley brothers. There was no way for him to know that none of the supposed inside information that they had just been given was true, or that the defection of the Dudley brothers from the Reigns organisation to his own was never going to happen. All that was on his mind as they approached their mansion was that he wanted to drink some whisky and spend a quiet night with Stephanie as he wound down from a long and stressful day. Sometimes it was the small things in life that made the difference; the simple pleasures, even for someone in his position. Maybe he could have Stephanie run a bath for them to share. That would be nice and relaxing, that was for sure. He knew that it was one of Stephanie's favourite things for them to do together of an evening too. She would have a glass or two of wine, he would have some whisky...

"I'm going to fucking kill the son of a bitch," Ronda growled as she slowed the car to turn into their gateway, startling Hunter from his thoughts.

"Who?"

"Whichever fucking waste of space is supposed to be on the gate. Where the fuck is he?"

Hunter was about to reply, but before he could, he saw two objects lying on the pathway which lead to the mansion's front door. There wasn't much light coming through the downstairs windows, but it was more than enough to enable him to make out that the two forms were bodies. The bodies of his security detail. Panic hit him like a train. "Shit! Look! Someone's fucking hit us! Steph's in there!" He reached under his seat for the pistol that he knew was stashed there and was climbing out of the car even before Ronda brought it screeching to a stop at the end of the pathway which lead to the front door.

The fact that the mansion was to the left of the car allowed Ronda to get out and stop Hunter in time, before he could recklessly charge into the house. Even though the woman who she considered to be an adoptive aunt was obviously in grave danger or worse, Ronda fought off the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach and the tears that she knew would come quickly if she gave in to them. Now was not the time for that. Tears would not help the situation, whatever it was. Therefore, she allowed her years of army training and experience to take over and keep her emotions in check. "Don't go charging in there!" she ordered as she blocked Hunter's path to the door, keeping her voice low, but leaving no room for argument as she drew her own gun from a shoulder holster which was concealed under her jacket. "There could be any number of people in there, waiting to pick us off if we rush in. We go in quiet and we clear the place properly. I lead, you follow. Clear?"

Hunter had no intention of getting into an argument over who went in first or pulling Ronda up on the way she spoke to him. Getting into the house was the only thing that mattered. Stephanie was all that mattered. It was obvious that Ronda was right that charging into the house could well end with them both being killed, so he nodded his agreement and followed her as she walked past the bodies of two fallen security detail members, stepping over the huge pool of blood that was congealing on the paving in the process.

After clearing the entrance hall, Ronda headed for the only door which was open; the door leading to one of the living rooms. As she entered, she saw the blood and brain matter which had sprayed up the wall from the gunshot that had killed Sara, and the maid's lifeless body which lay on the carpet in front of the couch. Ronda said nothing as she crouched down and delicately closed Sara's eyes for the final time. "Jesus fucking Christ, Sara," Hunter breathed from the doorway, surveying the horrifying scene for himself. It was then that he noticed something that Ronda had missed. There was a roll of black tape on the floor between Sara's foot and the couch. The tape had almost all been used, and Hunter immediately knew exactly for what purpose. He bent down, picked it up and said, "They've taken her. Look at this."

Ronda stood up and took the roll from him, studying it almost as though it might give up information on what it had witnessed. "Reigns," she snarled menacingly, as if she could already picture herself wringing Nicole's neck with her bare hands, watching the life drain out of her. "We need to check the CCTV, but this is them. This is revenge for you shooting that son of a bitch."

"Oh God, Steph," Hunter mumbled before she could go on. "Why would they take her though, if they want revenge? Why didn't they, you know, shoot her?" It had been a struggle to get the final two words out.

"There are ways to kill someone that are much worse than that. Trust me."

Under different circumstances, Hunter would have noticed the tone of the final two words and wondered who it was that Ronda was referring to, in what barbaric way she had killed them, and why, but all he could think about now was Stephanie and what might be happening to her even at that very moment. "Oh shit. Oh Jesus."

"Enough of that shit," Ronda barked at him, "This is hard for me too, but that's not going to fucking help, is it? Get your head in the game and fight for her. That's what she needs us to do. She needs us to be strong. We're going to get her back safe from these bastards, okay? Now, you need to get on the phone. We need to get as many bodies mobile as we can, asap. Tell them to go after anyone from the Reigns organisation they can find. They can take them, kill them, they can do whatever the fuck they want as long as we find out where their safe houses are."

"Wait a minute," Hunter said, holding up a hand to stop her before she could head for the door. "If we start lifting their people and bringing them back here, or killing them, word is going to get back to whoever's holding Steph and they're going to kill her."

Ronda looked Hunter right in the eyes. The reality of the situation was awful, but this was no time for sugar coating things. He needed to accept the reality of the situation so that they could focus on dealing with it. "You killed Roman Reigns. This is retaliation. We underestimated them, which was a big fucking mistake. You really think we're going to pay them off and they're going to bring Aunt Steph home safe and sound? Not a fucking chance. There are two ways this thing can end: Either they kill her, or we kill them. That's what we're going to do; we're going kill every fucking last one of them. We're going to make an example of them, but first we need to get her back safe. Now get on the phone. We've wasted enough time. I'm going to clear the rest of the house and then check the CCTV."

* * *

It took just over two hours for the first news of the ransom demand to reach Hunter. By that point, the fact that Stephanie had been kidnapped by not just the Reigns organisation, but by Nicole Reigns herself had been confirmed by the CCTV footage. The bodies of Sara and the three members of the security team had been taken away in a van and the search for information on Stephanie's location had gotten underway, although it had so far yielded no useful information. Ronda's insistence that Hunter had to remain with her at the mansion and help with co-ordination while they waited for the ransom demand had almost driven him insane, but part of him had known that she was right because if some proof that Stephanie was alive arrived, he wanted to see it for himself.

Steve Blackman walked into another of the mansion's living rooms, which had now been transformed into something resembling an operations centre, and handed over what Hunter hoped against hope would be that proof. A DVD had been delivered by a courier to the reception desk of the hotel which was part of the golf course complex that Hunter owned. The receptionist had been instructed that the package was for Hunter's eyes only. Steve was the hotel's manger and was aware of the crisis that was unfolding, so he had taken the decision to open the package himself and had then made the short car journey to the mansion to deliver the DVD as fast as he could, after calling ahead with the news that he had received it.

Hunter took the DVD and rushed over to put it into the player as Ronda nodded a hint of gratitude to Blackman. "That'll be all, Blackman. I'll call you if I you're needed for anything else."

"Yes ma'am. Uh, I hope Mrs. Helmsley comes home safely."

Ronda nodded again, this time to dismiss him but also to acknowledge his sentiment at the same time. She walked over to stand beside Hunter in front of the huge TV as the DVD loaded. They were both certain that they were going to be left upset and angry by what they were about to see. They had no idea.


	6. Chapter 6

"Don't tell me - you fucking killed her?" Steiner asked, looking into the trunk of Nicole's car. They were in the underground parking garage of what had been Roman's pet project; a hotel, which was still under construction. The work had been put on hold following his death.

"Of course I didn't kill her. She's breathing, you idiot. She probably panicked until she passed out, the stupid bitch. Get that shit off her mouth so she can breathe more easily. We need her to wake up soon; I don't want to waste much time before we make the video. Come on, get her ass upstairs."

Doing as ordered, Steiner began to unwrap the thick tape from around Stephanie's head and mouth. "I'm not sure about this; don't want her making too much noise if we're keeping her here for a day."

Nicole looked at him, an impatient expression on her face. "Why don't you let me do the thinking?"

Steiner scooped Stephanie up out of the trunk and headed for the freight elevator. Nicole followed along behind, thinking of her late husband and the fact that he would never see the hotel that was going to be his pride and joy in its finished state. ' _I wanted it to be here, honey. I want you to be a part of this too. This bitch and her bastard husband will wish they'd never even heard the name Reigns._ '

"That should do it," Steiner announced five minutes later, standing up and walking over to Nicole. "She ain't going anywhere now."

Nicole had to admit that Steiner had chosen just the right location for keeping Stephanie captive. This particular floor of the hotel was still in the early stages of construction; the only things in place so far were the steel girders and the two by four stud work. Stephanie lay in what would one day become a closet or a small bathroom. The distance between the studs was perfect to have Stephanie's arms secured above her head at one end and her ankles at the other. The Gorilla Tape was plenty strong enough to hold her, especially with the amount that Steiner had used. There were several plastic sheets underneath Stephanie; something else that Nicole had to admit was a good idea on Steiner's part. Stephanie's comfort had nothing to do with it.

"Nice idea with the sheets. It'll make the cleanup job a lot easier. She's not getting bathroom breaks, so there's going to be shit and piss everywhere by tomorrow night."

Steiner looked down at Stephanie and grinned maniacally. "And blood."

* * *

A feint groan escaped Stephanie as she began to regain consciousness. Pain was the first thing she became aware of. Her shoulders felt like they were being wrenched out of their sockets. Trying to move her arms from above her head proved to be impossible, as did moving her legs, which were spread wide. At least there were a couple of small positives: She was still fully clothed, and the tape had been removed from her mouth, leaving the unpleasant taste of the adhesive behind.

Hesitantly, she opened her eyes. What she saw wasn't at all what she had expected. Rather than a bedroom or basement of a safe house, she appeared to be in a construction site of some kind. At least Nicole or Steiner weren't anywhere to be seen. Testing her range of movement and the strength of her bonds told her that she could do little more than buck her hips or slip from side to side on the plastic underneath her.

The threats that Nicole had made back at the mansion repeated themselves in Stephanie's head and panic began to take hold of her. Soon Nicole and Steiner would come back and see that she was awake, and she knew what would happen next.

* * *

Nicole peeked around a large tarp which has been nailed to some of the studs by the construction crew, watching Stephanie from a distance. Steiner was doing the same from a few feet away. It was time to make a decision. Any moment now, Stephanie would start screaming. That couldn't be allowed to happen, but could she really order the vicious rape of another woman, and stand there and film it as it happened? ' _Yes, I can,'_ she decided a moment later. _'Hunter needs to feel what I felt when I saw that footage of him shooting Roman. My Roman. He needs to know what it feels like when you're dying inside._ ' Part of her felt like she should say something at the start of the video, something that would make it clear how much his actions had hurt her and how he had forced her to take this revenge. Nothing that came to mind could possibly convey those feelings. Actions had to speak louder than words. Hunter had to suffer what she had suffered, and suffer he would.

"You got the tape?" she asked Steiner as she checked the settings on her camcorder.

Steiner held up the half-used roll of Gorilla Tape in his right hand. There was a box cutter in his left. "Yeah. Just let me at the bitch."

Clicking on the camcorder, Nicole gestured towards Stephanie with her head. Finally let loose, Steiner marched over to Stephanie, leaving Nicole with the difficult task of keeping the camcorder focused on him while almost jogging to keep up.

* * *

Terror took hold of Stephanie as tape was wrapped tightly around her mouth for the second time that night, muffling her attempted protest. This time she was looking into the eyes of Scott Steiner as he did it. The repulsive grin on his face widened as he used the box cutter to cut through the tape, detaching the roll, which he threw aside. Then the box cutter was being waved in her face.

"You better convince me you're enjoying what's about to happen, whore. If you don't, this is going to get real nasty for you."

Stephanie's wide eyes almost crossed as she tried to focus on the blade, which was now touching the tip of her nose.

"Look at me!" Steiner roared. "You use those eyes to show me how good this is, or I'll cut them out of your fucking head when I'm done!"

Mercifully for Stephanie, she felt her mind going into what seemed like some kind of survival mode, giving her things other than Steiner's words to focus on. "Always did love a bitch in an expensive suit," was the last thing she heard clearly, as Steiner set about cutting her pants open with the box cutter. Convincing him that she was enjoying it seemed like an impossible task with her mouth taped up and her eyes certain to show terror rather than pleasure.

' _Please God, don't let him kill me. Let Hunter find me, please. Or maybe I won't want him to find me after this is over. Hunter, I love you._ '

An incredible stabbing pain between her legs, the likes of which she had never been close to experiencing before, brought her back to the brutal reality of what was happening to her and made her scream into the tape.

"Never had a very good aim with one of these," Steiner sneered before inserting the handle of the box cutter between his teeth. Blood dripped from the blade, confirming to Stephanie what the warm liquid was that she felt herself laying in.

She felt her panties being torn away from her and saw the blood soaked material, which had once been white, tossed aside. A moment later, Steiner was inside her, telling her that she wasn't worth the sweat he was about to break.

' _He's raping me, Hunter. There's nothing I can do to stop him. Please help me. Please. Find me, somehow, and make this stop. Make the pain go away. Make it all go away._ '

The combination of terror, pain and lack of oxygen caused Stephanie to begin to lose her grip on consciousness again, which was a mixed blessing. While it lessened the pain and deadened the feeling of what Steiner was doing to her, it also stopped her making the noises into her gag that he had been grunting along to.

Nicole had remained silent throughout, focused on getting as many creative camera angles as possible for the video. Only when it became obvious that Stephanie was slipping towards unconsciousness and Steiner was unloading into her, did she decide to do Stephanie a favour and turn her lights out for her with a brutal kick to the side of the head. There was a loud and sickening pop as Stephanie's eye socket shattered and a nasty looking cut opened up on her cheek.

Steiner pulled out and back away, but Nicole left the camera focused on Stephanie for a moment longer. Blood poured from the latest wound, joining Sara's, which was caked to the side of her face from earlier in the night.

"You're entirely to blame for that, Hunter," Nicole said. She turned the camcorder around so that she could talk directly to her husband's killer. "Now you know at least some of the pain that you made me feel. If you want to get her back alive, I'm going to give you one chance, and one chance only. Five million dollars, in cash, tomorrow. I will call you with a location for the exchange. From when I call you, you will have one hour to get there with the money, and you will come alone. No cops, none of your men, and no guard dog. Fuck with me or fail to show, I'll let Steiner take his time over killing her."

* * *

The DVD ended and the player's menu appeared on the TV screen. Hunter stared at it, eyes glassy, cheeks red, shaking with rage.


	7. Chapter 7

With a roar of anger, Hunter picked up a glass coffee table and hurled it at the living room wall as hard as he could. Glass exploded all over the room. "I'm going to fucking kill them!" he screamed at the top of his voice.

"Stop!" Ronda pleaded from the doorway, surveying the wreckage that was strewn across the floor, the coffee table only one of the items that Hunter had destroyed in his fit of rage. The TV now lay in the corner of the room, broken beyond repair after being torn from the wall. "Please stop."

"Didn't you fucking see what they did to her?" Hunter screamed at her, his face red with fury.

"I saw," Ronda choked out, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. She's my aunt, and yes, I saw what they did to her."

Seeing his niece with tears in her eyes, which was such a rarity for her, made Hunter pause and take a deep breath. Trashing the house and yelling at her wouldn't help with rescuing Stephanie from the horrifying situation that she was in. Both Stephanie and Ronda, his only family, needed him to be strong right now. He had to control his rage and try to suppress the feeling that his heart had been torn out of his chest and crushed under Nicole Reigns' boot.

"Come here," Hunter said, softening his tone significantly as he walked towards Ronda and embraced her.

"What they did to her... Jesus," Ronda said, holding on to him tightly.

"I know," Hunter said softly, finding the strength from somewhere to comfort her, despite his own anguish. The look of sheer and abject terror in his wife's eyes was all he could think about. It would haunt him forever, he knew that for certain.

Ronda pulled away from him a moment later and wiped her eyes. Hunter said, "That has to be that hotel they're building. I'll get on the phone and get everyone over here."

"We can't storm the hotel," Ronda said reluctantly. "We try that and they'll execute her before we even get close to her."

Hunter's voice rose again in anger, "I'm not just going to sit here with my thumb up my ass while they torture my wife! You saw what that animal Steiner did. He might be doing it again right now!"

"I know!" Ronda yelled back at him, her voice breaking. "I fucking know. We have to get her back alive. I'm telling you that if we hit that hotel, we get her killed. They'll kill her, Hunter. You know it as well as I do."

Hunter knew that she was right. There was only one way Stephanie could come out of the hotel construction site alive, and that was in the hands of Nicole Reigns. "Shit!" he yelled, frustration boiling over. "God fucking damn it. So what the hell do we do?"

Silence descended for a minute while they both thought over the awful situation. "This exchange Nicole talked about. It's bullshit," Ronda said. "Five million dollars? What the fuck would she want five million dollars for? She has more money than she'll ever know what to do with. This is no exchange; it's a plan to lure you into an ambush. You killed Roman, she want's to kill you in return, aunt Steph too."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

Ronda looked at him, her eyes cold. "It's what I'd do."

Hunter thought it over, and had to agree with her assessment. An idea came to him. It seemed like the only viable option. "We need to know where that 'exchange' is going to go down ahead of time. Reigns must have told some of her people what she has planned."

"Yeah," Ronda nodded, trying her best to set her emotions aside and focus. That was the only way to help Stephanie, the only way to save her life. "We need to lift someone who would know where she plans the ambush to happen; ideally someone who they won't immediately miss. Someone going off the radar might push her to kill Steph if we've read this wrong somehow."

"With me," Hunter ordered, marching out of the room. "I know exactly who we need."

* * *

Jamie Noble didn't know much about counter-surveillance, which was why he hadn't noticed the fact that a black SUV had been following him ever since he left the strip club that he managed for the Reigns organisation. It had been a long night, and all that was on Jamie's mind as he pulled his car into his driveway was getting in the house and having a stiff drink before he called his boyfriend, Joey, to attempt to work out their latest argument.

"He hasn't got a fucking clue we're here," Ronda said as she brought the SUV to a stop across the street from Jamie's house.

"Let's move," Hunter said, opening his door. "Take him before he gets in the door."

"Right."

Jamie rummaged around in his jacket pockets, looking for his keys as he walked towards him front door. A woman's voice came from behind, surprising him. "Excuse me, mister?"

"What?" Jamie said irritably as he turned to face the woman. She looked familiar somehow. Then something hit him hard in the back of the head, and everything went black.

"Just need to have a friendly chat is all," Ronda said, her face indicating exactly the opposite as she looked down at Noble, who was now an unconscious heap on the floor.

Hunter put his short metal baton back into the inside pocket of his jacket. "Get his ass in the house and tie him up. It won't be long before he wakes up."

* * *

"Wake up, asshole," Hunter said aggresively, slapping Noble hard on the left cheek, snapping his head to the side. They were now in the dining room, and Noble was securely tied to one of the wooden chairs, which had been pulled into the middle of the room, away from the table.

"What the hell?" Jamie moaned groggily, his eyes still glazed over.

"I said wake up," Hunter repeated, delivering another slap.

Jamie finally focused on Hunter, simultaneously realising the predicament he was in. "What the fuck is this?" he said, testing out his bonds, only to realise that he had no hope of gettting free.

"Well let's have a fucking think, shall we?" Hunter snarled. "Nicole Reigns kidnapped my wife, had her tortured and raped, and is now demanding five million dollars from me in exchange for her life. We know she's being kept at that hotel construction site, but we can't risk storming it. So, what you're going to do is tell us where Nicole plans the exchange to happen."

"I don't know where..."

Hunter deliver a stiff punch to the side of Jamie's face, cutting off his attempted denial. Blood began to flow from Jamie's nose as Hunter said, "Try again. This can get as painful as you like, because I know you know what she's planning. You're the kind of weasley asshole that knows everything that goes on, and I know you're tight with that piece of shit Steiner. So, I'm going to ask you again: Where does Nicole intend to make the exchange?"

"Even if I did know, if I told you, she'd have me killed."

"Newsflash, asshole. If you don't tell me, I'm going to have you killed. You hear that noise?" The sound of a boiling kettle could be heard from the kitchen. "That's my niece, Ronda. She's boiling a kettle of water, and she's not making me a cup of coffee."

Jamie gulped and his eyes widened in fear. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing, if you tell me what I want to know."

"I can't," Jamie whined, more of a plea than a statement.

A loud click came from the kitchen - the kettle switching itself off. Ronda walked into the dining room a moment later, carrying it. "He talking yet?" she asked Hunter.

"Not yet," Hunter said, stepping back so that Ronda could stand in front of Jamie.

"I'm only going to ask you once," Ronda said, looking down at Jamie like a cat savouring the prospect of a cornered mouse.

"I can't," Jamie whined again, even more pitifully this time.

Without saying anything more, Ronda poured the contents of the kettle into Jamie's lap. Her victim let out an agonised scream the likes of which Hunter had never heard before, and he was no stranger to killing.

"Shut him up," Ronda said.

Hunter grabbed a T-Shirt which had been draped over the back of one of the other dining chairs and stuffed as much of it as he could into Jamie's mouth. The screaming continued, but it was now muffled.

While this was happening, Ronda had walked back into the kitchen. Rather than boil the kettle again, she quickly returned, this time carrying a rather unthreatening looking metal spoon. She walked over to Jamie, who was now sobbing with the pain from his hideously burned groin and legs.

"Now that you know I'm not here to fuck around, let me tell you what's going to happen next," Ronda said, holding the spoon up in front of Jamie. "Hunter's going to take that shirt out of your mouth, and you're going to tell me where the exchange is going to happen tomorrow. If you don't, I'm going to use this spoon to take one of your eyes out."

Jamie's eyes bulged at the thought and he tried his best to plead with her not to do it. Ronda looked at Hunter and gestured towards Jamie with her head. Hunter pulled the T-Shirt out of Jamie's mouth. "Down by the docks," he immediately gasped out, looking at Hunter. "There's a shipping warehouse. LGM. It's one of the biggest ones. She's going to have you go down there alone, and she's going to kill you and your wife."

Hunter's face hardened at the revelation and he looked at Ronda. She wasn't surprised by it either.

"I told you what you wanted to know," Jamie gasped out. "Please, you can't let Nicole have me killed for this."

"I won't," Ronda assured him. With that, she pulled a pistol out of her shoulder holster and shot him in the forehead. Blood and brain matter sprayed across the room, staining the beige carpet. Jamie's head slumped forward, lifeless.

"Jesus Christ!" Hunter yelled at her in a combination of surprise and anger. Killing Noble hadn't been part of his plan.

Ronda shrugged. "You heard what he said. Reigns is planning an ambush. She's not going to kill aunt Steph before then, whether she realises this asshole has disappeared off the radar or not."

Accepting that and heading for the door, Hunter said, "Let's move. I'll have Rollins come over here and get rid of the body."

"Forty six," Ronda muttered under her breath as she followed after her uncle. It was the total number of people she had killed. "Might be able to hit fifty tomorrow."


	8. Chapter 8

"Come on Steiner, you idiot," Nicole mumbled to herself. She was waiting in the underground parking garage at the hotel. The trunk of her car was open, ready for Stephanie, when Steiner carried her down from upstairs. Nicole had already called Hunter and told him where to bring the five million dollars. Taking the money would be a nice bonus, but it wasn't what was important. Not today. Today was about was about killing both Hunter and Stephanie Helmsley.

Nicole's cell phone started ringing in her jeans pocket. With an irritated sigh, she took it out of her jeans pocket and answered the call without looking at the number. "What?"

Jerry Lawler's voice came on the line; one of the employees at the strip club that Roman had insisted on acquiring. "Nicole. Jerry Lawler here. I just wanted to let you know that Jamie didn't show up yet, again. I know he was arguing with Joey again yesterday afternoon, but this is happening too often. We get busy down here, especially by this time of night and..."

"Enough!" Nicole barked. Lawler and his incompetence could wait, and so could Jamie Noble and his stupid boyfriend. There were much bigger things to focus on this night. "You're in charge tonight, Lawler. If Noble comes in, tell him I said he's not needed and that if he shows up late again I'll stick my foot so far up his ass he won't feel his boyfriend's tiny dick touching the sides in future. You got that?"

"Yes ma'am," Lawler said, laughing.

Nicole ended the call and put her phone away, just as Steiner finally appeared, walking out of the freight elevator with Stephanie draped over his shoulder, now wrapped up in the plastic sheets that she had been lying upstairs. Never in her life had Nicole seen such a pathetic sight.

"This whore is fucking disgusting," Steiner complained. "She's covered in her own blood, piss and shit. I had to wrap her in these things to stop it going all over me."

"Great," Nicole sighed. "And I have to ride with you. Actually, fuck that. Even wrapped in that, she must stink." She looked over at Zack Ryder who was standing nearby. Nicole had assigned him the role of backup for tonight's mission. "Ryder. Get over here and drive this car. I'm taking yours. If someone's going to take the car that doesn't smell of shit, it's going to be me."

Ryder didn't look happy, but he didn't object as he walked over and got in the car. Steiner dumped Stephanie into the trunk without bothering to be careful with her. Stephanie made no sound and lay motionless. Looking down at her, Nicole guessed that she had passed out again from shock or bloodless, probably a combination of both. "No wonder you took so long. I don't think you used enough tape," she said sarcastically to Steiner. The Gorilla Tape was not only wrapped around Stephanie's mouth, but also her wrists, which were secured behind her back, her ankles, and also around her eyes as a very effective blindfold.

"I told her she's never going to see her husband again, and I meant it," Steiner said, grinning.

Nicole shrugged. To her, this was about her revenge for Roman, not Steiner living out his sick fantasies. "It'll be over soon," she said to Stephanie, her tone not getting very close to sympathetic. She slammed the trunk closed and turned to Steiner. "Fucking Jamie Noble didn't show up for work again."

"Probably had a bust up with his boyfriend again," Steiner said, emphasising the word boyfriend in a homophobic manner.

"Probably," Nicole agreed. "He needs to start putting the club first. I'm getting tired of this shit already." She paused for a moment and her expression grew a little concerned. "You don't think this could be Helmsley, do you? The guard dog maybe? I mean, it's hardly a secret that the club is full of you guys most nights of the week and you all get along well with Noble. What if they're trying to get information on what I have planned?"

"You're stretching a bit to get to that from the fact that he's not at work. And why would Noble know anything?" Steiner had no intention of divulging the fact that he had been in the club the previous afternoon, running his mouth to Noble about what was about to go down. In retrospect, it seemed like a very stupid thing to do, but at the time it had been a turn on to talk about what he was about to do to Stephanie; foreplay of sorts.

"Maybe," Nicole conceded, still unsure.

"You're worrying about nothing," Steiner said dismissively. "Even if Helmsley knew the plan in advance, it would make no difference. We hold all the cards. Me and Ryder will have him covered when you kill the whore; then we kill him. Then we take the money, assuming he brings it, and we get the fuck out of there."

"What about the guard dog?"

Steiner grinned again. "If she shows up a tries anything, please leave her to me. I'd love to get my hands on that one."

Nicole considered that for a moment and then made a decision. She was happy with her plan. Even in the unlikely event that Helmsley knew about the location of the exchange and that she planned to kill them both, it made no difference. By holding Stephanie, she was holding all the cards. "Alright, let's move. I want to be there before Helmsley arrives."

* * *

"Any minute now," Nicole said, nervous tension making it impossible for her to stop pacing back and forth in front of the two cars, which were now parked side by side in the brightly lit LGM warehouse.

"We're all set," Steiner said. "Calm down and stop walking around like that."

"Who the fuck are you talking to?" Nicole exploded at him. "This son of a bitch killed my husband in cold blood and I'm about to get my revenge, Roman's revenge, and you expect me to calm down? Talk to me like that again and I'll put a bullet in you too."

Steiner scowled back at her but kept his mouth shut. The seemingly inevitable confrontation with Nicole could wait for another time. The sound of a powerful engine approaching refocused everyone on the mission at hand. Hunter Helmsley had to be the only person who would be approaching the warehouse at this time of night. Sure enough, one of the instantly recogniseable large black SUV's with tinted windows that Helmsley and his people always used pulled into the warehouse and stopped a short distance away from where Nicole and her two men were waiting, now with their weapons raised.

Hunter calmly got out of the SUV, with his hands raised and walked around to stand in front of the vehicle. "It's just me, Reigns, like you said. I'm not armed. I have the money; it's on the back seat in a couple of briefcases. You made your point. I just want to take my wife and leave. No one needs to die here tonight."

Unlike Ryder and Steiner, who were carrying assault rifles, Nicole had the same pistol that she had used in her assault on the Helmsley mansion the previous day. With it, she gestured for Ryder to walk over to Hunter. "Search him. Then get the money."

"Where's my wife?" Hunter demanded. "I want to see her before you touch the money."

"Shut the fuck up," Nicole snapped at him, looking at him with unbridled hatred.

"No one has to die here," Hunter repeated. "You take the money, I take Steph. Where is she?"

Ryder reached Hunter and patted him down, checking for concealed weapons. "He's clean," he reported to Nicole before heading around the left side of the SUV and opening the rear door. Two black briefcases sat on the seat, as Hunter had promised. Ryder opened them and began to check that the notes inside were genuine.

While this was happening, Nicole gestured towards one of the cars with her head and ordered Steiner, "Get her."

Setting his gun on the car's hood and walking around to the trunk, Steiner smirked to himself. Seeing the look on Helmsley's face when he set eyes on his wife and saw the appalling state she was in would be very enjoyable; almost as enjoyable as being allowed to kill Stephanie would have been. He opened the trunk and the foul stench of Stephanie's excrement assaulted his nostrils.

"You're fucking repulsive," he said to the unconscious Stephanie. With a groan of disgust, he lifted her out of the trunk and headed back towards Nicole.

* * *

Just over half a mile away, Ronda lay on the flat roof of a ten storey apartment building. The hard surface would have been very uncomfortable for most people, but not Ronda. She was trained to be able to ignore such things. The conditions were also not ideal; cold weather and a fairly strong breeze. Ronda hadn't even noticed the cold, and had already allowed for the wind. Now she had only one thing to focus on: watching the exchange through the powerful scope attached to her rifle. The moment she had been waiting for was almost at hand. She and Hunter had assumed that Nicole knew that she had been in the army as that information was hardly difficult to find out, but what she definitely didn't know about was the special sniper task force that Ronda had joined. If she had known that, there would have been no way that she would have arranged for the meeting to take place in warehouse with so many windows that Ronda could so easily see and shoot through.

As Steiner lifted her out of the trunk, Ronda whispered, "My God. What did they do to you?" She could see through the clear plastic sheets that Stephanie's eyes and mouth were wrapped up in tape, and even worse was the fact that her clothes had all been cut to tatters and she was covered from head to toe in her own blood and shit. "I'll make sure that bastard dies slowly and painfully."

With that, Ronda took a deep breath and held it, simultaneously taking first pressure on the rifle's trigger. Through the scope, she saw Steiner toss Stephanie to the floor like a piece of garbage. The impact was heavy on the right shoulder; likely a dislocation if Ronda had to guess. Nicole shifted her aim from Hunter to Stephanie, pointing her pistol right at her head. Words were being exchanged between Nicole and Hunter.

Ryder walked back towards the other car, with the two briefcases full of money in his hands. He said something to Nicole. Nicole turned to him and used her pistol to gesture towards the back of the car; telling him to put the money in the trunk or on the back seat.

Ronda pulled the trigger.

* * *

Although he knew what was coming, Hunter still jumped when the top half of Nicole's head exploded with a dull thud. Skull fragments, brain matter and blood showered the car that she had been standing in front of, then her almost headless corpse fell over sideways, spurting blood onto the concrete.

Surprise and shock cost Steiner a second in his reaction time. He had only just started to bring his gun to bear on Hunter when a bullet impacted his lower chest, shredding his aorta as it passed through him. He collapsed backwards and the gun bounced away from him when he hit the concrete. Even if it hadn't, Steiner was now occupied with screaming in pain and clutching at his hideous wound, which was undoubtedly fatal.

Ryder had reacted by taking cover behind the second car. It was obvious that there was incoming sniper fire, from God knew where. He had no intention of taking a bullet for Nicole Reigns, especially now that she was dead.

"I surrender, Helmsley!" he yelled. "Take your wife, take the money! I want no part of this!"

Hunter had jogged over and picked up Steiner's assault rifle, just in case. "Then throw your gun out in front of the car and stand up, hands in the air!"

"Alright!" Ryder shouted back. His assault rifle flew out from behind the car, as ordered. Nervously, he stood, hands raised. "Please don't..."

With another thud, his head disintegrated.

Hunter had wanted to finish Steiner off himself as a small measure of revenge, but this was denied to him by the fact that he was dead already. He walked over and spat on the corpse. "I actually wish I could have kept you alive, so that my wife and I could have made you live a lifetime of constant agony."

"Steph, baby," Hunter said as he knelt down beside Stephanie as began unwrapping her from the plastic sheets. "I'm here, baby. They're dead. You're safe. You're safe now."

Hunter's phone rang in his coat pocket. He snatched it out, glanced at the name and answered it. "Ronda, she's alive, but she's unconscious."

"Thank God," Ronda said, her voice breaking as relief hit her. It was bad, but it could have been a lot worse. "Someone will be calling in those gunshots."

"I know," Hunter said. "I'm coming to get you now."

"Hunter, don't try and take that tape off her. We'll need mineral oil to loosen it, especially over her eyes."

"Right," Hunter acknowledged and then paused for a second. "How do you know that?"

"Trust me. Hurry and get over here, I'm heading down to the street now."

Hunter ended the call, and moments later, with Stephanie lying on the back seat and a briefcase in each footwell, the SUV sped from the warehouse.

* * *

Ronda was ready and waiting when the SUV tore around the nearby corner at the end of block, its tires squealing in protest. They squealed again as Hunter stopped in front of her. He jumped out and yelled, "Drive!"

Without questioning him, Ronda ran around to the driver's side and got in, setting her rifle case on the passenger seat. Hunter had climbed in the back and was cradling Stephanie in his arms.

"Oh my God," Ronda said, looking in the back and seeing the state her aunt was in up close.

"Drive!" Hunter screamed at her. Aside from the urgency of getting Stephanie to the hospital, sirens could be heard in the distance. The cops were on the way to investigate the gunshots.

The SUV's engine roared as Ronda pulled away. She divided her attention between the road and listening to Hunter talking softly to Stephanie in the back.

"Where are we going?" Ronda asked after they had covered a couple of blocks.

"The hospital. Where do you think we're going?"

"Doctors will ask a lot of questions," Ronda pointed out. "They have to, with injuries as bad as these, not to mention the tape."

"Fuck the doctors, and fuck their questions! I'll square it away with Perez when she shows up, somehow." Melina Perez was the city's Sheriff, and she was essentially on the Helmsley payroll.

Ronda stopped at a red light; the intersection too busy to run it. She turned to lookin the back. "We could get her treatment at home?"

Hunter looked his niece in the eyes. She knew the look well. "Hospital. Now. I'm not going to tell you again."

With that, as soon as the light went green, Ronda burned rubber and the SUV roared across the intersection, heading for the hospital as fast as she could get them there.

END

* * *

 _Update (14/3/16):_

 _The sequel to this story, titled Evolution, is now live and can be found on my profile._

 _Update (31/5/16):_

 _The first chapter of the series' third story has now been published. It is called Covert Ops, and it can be found on my profile. Enjoy!_


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